Former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom Alex Younger. PHOTO: FILE
Iran’s regime has been more resilient than anyone would have expected, said a former head of British foreign intelligence agency MI6, adding that options for the US and Israel are “pretty limited and not great.”
“The reality is that the US underestimated the task, and I think as of about two weeks ago, lost the initiative to Iran,” Alex Younger told The Economist on Wednesday, mentioning that Iran has the “upper hand” in the war.
Younger said that Iran took some “good decisions” as early as last June about dispersing their military capability and delegating the authority for the use of those weapons, adding that this move has given them “significant extra resilience” against an incredibly powerful air campaign.
“In practice, the Iranian regime has been more resilient than I think anyone would have expected,” Younger said.
He said that Iran has embarked on what he called “horizontal escalation,” mentioning that firing rockets at anybody within range has been “a very good way of putting” a direct price on the US.
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“They’ve understood the significance of the energy war and held the straits at threat and just globalized the conflict,” said the former spy chief, adding that Iranians “played a weak hand pretty well.”
Citing US President Donald Trump’s statements on the war, he said that Iranians are in a war of existence, whereas America has embarked on a war of choice.
Touching on Iran’s drone attacks, he said this has been an “almost perfectly executed military campaign” from the air, “you can’t reduce the threat to zero.” “I think the options for the US and Israel are pretty limited and not great,” he added.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the Iran war has spun beyond all boundaries, declaring the conflict “out of control,” cautioning that the world faces the prospect of a far broader confrontation.
Read More: UN chief warns Iran war ‘out of control,’ world staring down barrel of wider conflict
“More than three weeks on, this war is out of control,” Guterres told reporters at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York, adding that “the conflict has broken past the limits even leaders thought imaginable.”
“The world is staring down the barrel of a wider war, a rising tide of human suffering, and a deeper global economic shock,” he said, stressing that it “has gone too far.”
Calling for an end to the military escalation, Guterres said. “It is time to stop climbing the escalation ladder and start climbing the diplomatic ladder, and return to full respect of international law.”
Pointing to the key parties involved in the war, he said, “My message to the United States and Israel is that it is high time to end the war as human suffering deepens, civilian casualties mount, and the global economic impact is increasingly devastating.”
Guterres urged Iran to end attacks on the Gulf countries, arguing that they “are not parties to the conflict.”
